Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Jang Un-mo's mouth fell open in shock.

Jang Un-chu then pulled out two more letters.

"Look. There are this many letters. What difference would it make if one or two went missing?"

Jang Un-mo's heart sank.

So it really was true.

There hadn't been just one letter.

For a moment, she had no idea what to do.

Out of habit, she turned to look at her grandmother.

But Jang Un-chu didn't give her time to think.

The instant she saw a man in a long robe appear at the entrance, she quickly called out,

"Zhao Yongchang!"

Jang Un-mo spun around in panic.

The moment she saw Zhao Yongchang approaching, fear flooded her face.

Zhao Yongchang normally studied in town and returned home for two days every half month.

Today happened to be the fifteenth, the day he was given leave to return.

After entering the courtyard, Zhao Yongchang saw the crowd packed into the narrow space and his wife's strange expression.

He couldn't help frowning.

"Sister-in-law, why did you call me?"

Jang Un-chu answered,

"It's nothing serious. I just wanted to show you a few letters."

Zhao Yongchang had arrived at exactly the right time.

Otherwise, it would have been difficult to make the contents of the letters known among so many people.

And Jang Un-chu had wanted the Zhao family to know exactly what those letters contained from the very beginning.

After being reborn, Jang Un-mo had done nothing but think about how to marry into the Zhao family.

There was no reason the Zhao family should remain ignorant of that.

Zhao Yongchang was the beloved youngest son of Old Master Zhao and Old Madam Zhao.

Now that Jang Un-mo's past had come to light, she probably wouldn't be able to live comfortably in the Zhao household anymore.

Just thinking about it made Jang Un-chu feel indescribably refreshed.

She handed one of the letters to Zhao Yongchang.

"Here. This is a love letter your wife once sent to her lover."

"Would you like to read it?"

"It seems Un-mo was very fond of writing letters."

"Perhaps you'll even recognize a sentence or two."

Zhao Yongchang looked confused.

Before their marriage, he and Jang Un-mo had exchanged letters quite often.

He still remembered the first letter she had given him, calmly putting her feelings into words.

His heart had raced when he received it.

After that, they began exchanging letters more frequently and sharing their feelings through writing.

"No!"

Jang Un-mo screamed and lunged for the letter.

Zhao Yongchang instinctively lifted his hand high so she couldn't snatch it away.

When Jang Un-mo kept trying to make a scene, her mother-in-law, Old Madam Zhao, grabbed her and pulled her aside.

"Let Yongchang read it."

"What are you so afraid of?"

"If you didn't write it, then there's nothing to worry about."

Old Madam Zhao had already been listening for quite a while.

Now that she understood what had happened, she glared at Jang Un-mo as though she wanted to devour her alive.

The marriage arrangement between Jang Un-mo and Zhao Yongchang had been tacitly accepted by both families since childhood.

Old Madam Zhao had always regarded Jang Un-mo as her future daughter-in-law.

And Jang Un-mo had behaved that way too.

So what was all this?

The girl who had hovered around her son every day had secretly spent time with another man whenever she had the chance.

Not only that, she had even written him love letters.

And she had spent two whole days alone with him?

Any one of those things was enough to make Old Madam Zhao faint from anger.

And yet she already suspected that Jang Un-chu was speaking closer to the truth than nonsense.

Meanwhile, after handing one letter to Zhao Yongchang, Jang Un-chu gave the other two to villagers who could read.

It wasn't enough for only the Zhao family to know.

Jang Un-chu wanted everyone to know.

Only then would some of the anger in her heart finally ease.

The villagers didn't disappoint her.

They crowded around the letters and began reading together.

Most of them couldn't read, so they repeatedly asked the people holding the letters what they said.

With no other choice, those people began reading the contents aloud in low voices.

Very quickly, the contents of the letters became public.

Gasps and whispers occasionally rippled through the crowd.

Naturally, Old Madam Jang couldn't stand watching villagers pass around the letters of her most beloved granddaughter.

She charged toward them.

"What are you all looking at?!"

"What are you looking at?!"

"Those aren't even your things!"

"Give them back right now!"

Old Madam Jang bared her teeth and reached out with clawed fingers, trying to grab the person holding the letters.

But the excited villagers pushed her back.

Just as Old Madam Jang grew even angrier and prepared to charge again, someone suddenly wrapped their arms around her.

She turned and shouted furiously,

"What are you doing?! Let go of me!"

The person restraining her was Fang Hong.

Jang Un-chu's mother.

Fang Hong said nothing.

She simply held Old Madam Jang tightly and refused to let go.

She had always resented the way the Jang family doted only on the eldest branch's daughter while treating her own daughter unfairly.

But there had been little she could do.

Her husband was foolishly filial and obeyed his mother in almost everything.

As a daughter-in-law, Fang Hong couldn't openly fight with her mother-in-law every day.

If she did, the entire village would condemn her as unfilial.

And what if she were driven out?

Even wealthy families disliked having divorced daughters return home.

For ordinary villagers like them, it was even worse.

If a woman were divorced, then even if she remarried, she could usually only find the worst possible match.

But after hearing her daughter's story, Fang Hong finally understood.

The suffering her daughter had endured for so many years had all begun because of the eldest branch's beloved daughter.

Fang Hong immediately became furious.

Of course she didn't want Old Madam Jang helping Jang Un-mo.

She wanted that shameless girl to become unable to show her face in public.

Best of all would be if Jang Un-mo also experienced the pain of being divorced.

Then Fang Hong wanted to see what kind of man that spoiled Jang Un-mo could possibly marry afterward.

"You really don't know your place!"

Old Madam Jang shouted angrily and dug her nails in.

Fang Hong's hands were pinched and twisted so hard that she gasped in pain.

The skin on the back of her hand split, and blood appeared.

The flesh quickly swelled blue and purple.

Just looking at it was frightening.

Anyone could tell how viciously Old Madam Jang was fighting back.

"Ah!"

Fang Hong finally screamed.

She couldn't restrain the furious old woman by herself.

Her body was gradually being dragged along.

Just as Old Madam Jang was getting close to the person holding the letters, Fang Hong cursed at her husband, who was standing nearby at a loss.

"Are you blind?!"

"Your daughter suffered like this, and that shameless Jang Un-mo got caught fooling around with another man, so they forced our Un-chu to take her place!"

"Do you have any idea how many years our daughter spent being beaten?"

"And your mother is still protecting only Jang Un-mo!"

"Why aren't you helping me?!"

"Can't you see your wife is about to die here?!"

"Ah... r-right."

The second son of the Jang family was dull, simple, and almost foolishly filial.

After his father died and only his mother remained, he had grown even more obedient to her.

Fortunately, that didn't mean he had no affection for his daughter.

After hearing his wife's angry shouting, he hurried over to help.

He was a man accustomed to hard labor and far stronger than Old Madam Jang.

With his help, the old woman's momentum was immediately crushed.

The moment her normally obedient son dared defy her, Old Madam Jang began cursing him too.

But the second son didn't let go.

At this point, among the people connected to Jang Un-mo, her grandmother was being restrained by her son and daughter-in-law.

Jang Un-mo's mother wasn't much of a fighter and was being pushed back by the surrounding women.

Jang Un-mo herself was still being held by her mother-in-law.

As for her sisters-in-law, there was no need to mention them.

Old Madam Zhao's position was already perfectly clear.

Why would they step in to help Jang Un-mo?

Besides, they didn't get along particularly well with her in the first place.

They were far more interested in watching the spectacle.

As time passed, everyone more or less learned what the letters said.

Even Old Madam Jang eventually stopped struggling.

She tugged her arms a couple of times and grumbled,

"Let go."

"I'm not going to snatch the letters anymore."

The second son looked at his wife.

Fang Hong studied the situation, then finally released Old Madam Jang.

Her husband let go as well.

This time, Old Madam Jang stayed still.

After the villagers finished reading both letters, they handed them to Zhao Yongchang.

From the moment Zhao Yongchang began reading, his expression had darkened.

He had exchanged letters with Jang Un-mo often.

Even long after they married, Jang Un-mo would occasionally write letters to him.

Every time she did, their affection seemed to deepen.

Zhao Yongchang had always been very happy with the way she expressed her feelings through writing.

And because of that, he was extremely familiar with her handwriting.

He recognized the handwriting in these letters at a glance.

Many years had passed, so Jang Un-mo's handwriting had changed somewhat.

Even so, the small habits in the way she formed certain strokes were exactly the same.

It was easy to recognize.

Jang Un-chu quietly watched him.

When she saw Zhao Yongchang flipping through the other two letters, she casually added,

"Oh, right."

"Jang Un-mo isn't particularly talented at writing."

"So if you've ever found one or two especially impressive lines in the letters she exchanged with you, she might have copied them from letters Yang Ze once sent her."

Jang Un-chu had only said it out of spite.

She never expected the guess to actually hit the mark.

But Zhao Yongchang's face darkened even further.

And Jang Un-mo merely looked awkward and didn't argue.

"...?"

Don't tell me she really did?

After finishing the letters, Zhao Yongchang took a deep breath and looked around.

Everyone was watching him, waiting for his reaction.

Then he said,

"This isn't an appropriate place to discuss the matter."

"Mother, let's return home and talk there."

The villagers immediately showed disappointment.

They wouldn't get to watch the rest of the confrontation.

But that didn't lessen their excitement.

What they had already seen today was more than entertaining enough.

And wasn't Zhao Yongchang's reaction itself practically confirmation?

As for what happened next, they could simply wait.

Eventually, the outcome would become known.

For now, they could leave the main parties behind, find their closest friends, and carefully go over everything that had happened today all over again.

Jang Un-mo, however, felt even more disappointed when she heard Zhao Yongchang's words.

She instinctively understood something.

This moment had been her best chance to clear her name.

If Zhao Yongchang had immediately said that the handwriting wasn't hers, then the topic could have shifted back into nothing more than a quarrel between her and her cousin.

At the very least, people wouldn't have overwhelmingly concluded that she was the one at fault.

After all, no one would assume Zhao Yongchang would falsely take such humiliation upon himself.